Tsingtao Beer Case Study
Consumer buying behavior
Consumer behavior of purchasing beer is definitely emotional and of low involvement. The pleasure and gratification getting from drinking beer can be sensual but fleeting. When making purchase decisions, consumers hardly spend any time to recognize problems or to search information because when they feel like drinking, they will just buy some.
Generally speaking, customers keep loyal to their favorite beer brand. In fact, many of my friends have told me that Yanjing Beer tastes the worst among all they have tried and even though it’s relatively cheap, they are not likely to buy it after first try. As you can see, among all the brand attributes of beer, the price is not a significant concern while taste, which can lead to brand value, matters much more. Once customers have recognized the nice taste of a certain beer brand, probably they are never going to switch brand and all the beer decisions they make later will be regular purchases.
Beer market segmentation
The bases I choose for segmenting the Chinese beer market include age, gender, income level, life style, user rate and geographic area. All these factors matter in that they determine the different consumer behavior of drinking beer, as concluded in Table 1.
Age From 18 to 60 Young customers at 20-35 have strong potential
Gender Men and women Women might drink beer less often than men or choose light flavor, out of concern of weight control
Income level From low to high-middle Income does not matter a lot due to beer’s relatively low price compared with other alcohol
Lifestyle With leisure time and maybe some pressure
User rate Light drinker, medium drinker, heavy drinker
Geographic area Northeast, southeast, northwest, southwest and middle Some areas have notable drinking habits such as northeast China. Besides, there is a tendency for people to choose their local beer brand.
Table 1.
Competitive landscape and Tsingtao’s status
China is the largest beer producer
Consumer behavior of purchasing beer is definitely emotional and of low involvement. The pleasure and gratification getting from drinking beer can be sensual but fleeting. When making purchase decisions, consumers hardly spend any time to recognize problems or to search information because when they feel like drinking, they will just buy some.
Generally speaking, customers keep loyal to their favorite beer brand. In fact, many of my friends have told me that Yanjing Beer tastes the worst among all they have tried and even though it’s relatively cheap, they are not likely to buy it after first try. As you can see, among all the brand attributes of beer, the price is not a significant concern while taste, which can lead to brand value, matters much more. Once customers have recognized the nice taste of a certain beer brand, probably they are never going to switch brand and all the beer decisions they make later will be regular purchases.
Beer market segmentation
The bases I choose for segmenting the Chinese beer market include age, gender, income level, life style, user rate and geographic area. All these factors matter in that they determine the different consumer behavior of drinking beer, as concluded in Table 1.
Age From 18 to 60 Young customers at 20-35 have strong potential
Gender Men and women Women might drink beer less often than men or choose light flavor, out of concern of weight control
Income level From low to high-middle Income does not matter a lot due to beer’s relatively low price compared with other alcohol
Lifestyle With leisure time and maybe some pressure
User rate Light drinker, medium drinker, heavy drinker
Geographic area Northeast, southeast, northwest, southwest and middle Some areas have notable drinking habits such as northeast China. Besides, there is a tendency for people to choose their local beer brand.
Table 1.
Competitive landscape and Tsingtao’s status
China is the largest beer producer